Lost in Heaven

Chapter One

What Is

I lay on my bed, on my stomach, reading the final Harry Potter. I could never get enough of Harry Potter books. They were amazing. I was just getting to my favorite part (Voldemort dying, of course), when I was rudely interrupted my a text message on my cell phone. From: Amanda: Why aren't you replying to any of my phone calls?

I laughed-hadn't she realized by now that I never pick up anyone's calls when I'm reading Harry Potter? I guess it was just coincedence that I got this message- I'm reading HP7. BYE!

Gosh. Her message made me lose interest in reading it. Ugh. I shut the book and tossed it into my bookshelf. I heard my mom calling my name. "Tara!"

I was not in the mood for going to Aunt Heather's house for dinner. Because that's what we do every Wednesday. Since mom isn't such a great cook. Dad was, though.

I trotted down the stairs, my brunette hair all messy for rolling over in so many position reading. I had brown hair like my mom, and plain brown eyes, like my dad. Except they weren't just plain brown. They were perfectly clear brown- or as mom liked to say, chocolatey brown. When I got to the kitchen, mom didn't have the car keys like usual, she was just sitting at the kitchen table, looking really sad.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She forced a small smile. "It's someone special's birthday."

"Who? Aunt Heather or something?"

"Then it would also be my birthday wouldn't it? No, it's not Aunt Heathers. It's Casey's."

Mom called Dad Casey because that was his name, of course. She never said dad too much. Probably because she had been used to saying Casey all her life practically. Mom didn't really go by the rules, anyways. She did things her own way. She wasn't a very by-the-book mom, if you know what I mean.

So when she mentioned dad, my mind went blank. October 7th, Octover 7th, October 7th. Dad's birthday. How could I forget? How? Why was I so stupid?

"Oh..." was all I managed. Get your act together! I thought. It probably made mom even more upset that I barely knew my dad.

Well, I actually knew quite a bit about him. I knew mom met him when she was twelve (and she thought she was 13). I knew he was fourteen. I knew he had red-brown hair and freckles and beautiful brown eyes and liked mixing random foods together...I knew he liked skateboarding and baseball...and that his best friend was Billy, who lives a couple blocks away and is still good friends with mom. I knew he and mom had lots of setbacks when they were young.

Yet, I barely knew anything about him.

Like, for starters, how he died.